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Carson City IHOP gunman said he saw demons, authorities say

November 2, 2011 | 6:51
pm

He said he saw demons. He started hearing voices. “They're telling me to do bad things,” Eduardo Sencion confided to a priest he approached on the street.

Police have long said Sencion, the gunman who shot to death four people in a Nevada IHOP before killing himself, was mentally troubled. But they had never specified how much his mind had crumbled before the Sept. 6 rampage.

In a presentation to fellow law enforcement officers obtained by the Associated Press, the Carson City Sheriff’s Office painted the most detailed picture yet of the 32-year-old gunman.

Sencion was a devout Catholic with no criminal history. He first sought treatment when an employer told his family he was growing paranoid. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a relative later told police, and though he took medication for it, he was committed more than once.

A shy man, Sencion told his family he avoided intimacy with women because he feared he might “father a child and pass along his illness," the AP said.

At some point, he gave his mother the keys to his gun safe, telling her he was getting sick. He thought demons were trying to harm him. After his medications were changed this summer, he approached the priest, a stranger, and begged for help.

About a month later, Sencion drove to the IHOP with two assault rifles, two handguns and 595 rounds of ammunition, the AP said. He charged into the restaurant and opened fire.